john68 wrote:iwasthere2012 wrote: Having them underestimate us was probably the biggest weapon in our arsenal (spits).
Stalling us is definitely their strategybut nothing I've seen from them has me convinced that they know what their next step is, should throwing money at the problem fail two years in a row. Forget what Neville says, nobody can say that City are not progressing. Regardless of whether we win this year or not.
United winning in the league in 2013 made them think they had seen us off. Our ship had sailed. Only they find out our ship had sailed out to meet the worldwide fleet that we are putting together.
Their next step has already been under discussion and negotiation for quite a while now. Whilst they may well have initially underestimated us, that underestimation didn't last for long. Don't forget that the FFPRs were announced as long ago as under the Hughes reign..
The danger is that we underestimate them and their power to control. A huge number of City fans poo pooed the FFPRs, but asTed says,it has hurt us.It also had the effect of City changing and speeding up the player investment, which was the the way they finally nailled us buy dragging in those contracts we had already.
The difference when Chelsea arrived was that they became absorbed and 2 extra qualifying places were added.
They announced they were going to do it, but didn't say what 'it' was, until they found a way of arranging it to stitch us up & let Utd etc off. They watched what we were doing, discussed it with us every step of the way, patted us on the back, & adjusted the rules accordingly, to catch us out.
I'm convinced that the cartel thought it would stop us from spending money & that they would be able to hit us with such penalties that we would be unable to compete & they would run away from us, just like they did the rest of the Premier League all those years ago. We just carried on spending money, & introduced higher levels of sponsorship to cover it. In the end, they managed to get us by nailing us for stuff we did before they'd even told us what the penalties were & that they had led us to believe, would be exempt from the calculations.
We have tried in the last couple of years, to calm things down a bit & not go for the really big deals/wages etc, in order to avoid sanctions, but it did us no good; they just nailed us anyway. At least the work balancing the books these last few seasons has set us up for the future.
But PSG just drove a truck through the barricades, without bothering, THEN took the hit for a season. Now they are through the gates & away. I bet if we could go back in time, we would do the same.